Southeastern opens high-tech international business lab
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
by: Rene Abadie
OPEN FOR BUSINESS – Jose Barrios Ng, Panamanian entrepreneur and president of the Universidad Latina de Panama, and his wife Veronica prepare to cut the ribbon on a new computer lab in the Southeastern Louisiana University College of Business. Pictured are, from left, April Kemp, instructor; Russell McKenzie, head of the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management; Barrios Ng and his wife Veronica; Southeastern President John L. Crain; Vice President for Advancement Wendy Lauderdale; Interim Dean of the College of Business Antoinette Phillips; Associate Professor Tara Lopez; and Aristides Baraya, instructor and head of Southeastern’s Latin American Business and Development Initiative.
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University officials and guests formally opened the
Barrios Ng Family Lab for Global Marketing and Latin American Business. A ribbon-cutting
ceremony was held Friday (May 5) in the College of Business.
Cutting the ribbon to open the new facility were Jose Barrrios Ng and his wife
Veronica. Barrios Ng, a successful business director and entrepreneur in the Republic
of Panama with strong ties to Louisiana, is currently president and chairman of the
board for one of the largest private universities in Panama, the Universidad Latina
de Panama. The institution works closely with the Southeastern Latin American Business
and Development Initiative.
“The addition of this lab provides new and very significant resources for our
students and will better prepare them for the real world of business,” said Antoinette
Phillips, interim dean of the College of Business. “We are grateful to Dr. Barrios
Ng and his family for their generosity in helping to provide our students with the
high-tech tools they need to be successful in their careers.”
The new lab has five workstations with 30 iMac computers and software access
to Adobe Creative Cloud, Hootsuite and other resources used in marketing courses,
such as advertising, analytics and digital and social media marketing. The lab also
features a 136-inch widescreen, interactive learning system, called ActivWall. Southeastern
is the first U.S. university to install the system that allows faculty and students
the ability to collaborate, connect and share ideas in real time. The equipment has
the ability to use Skype for webinar sessions with speakers internationally.
The lab will also be used to help instruct participants in the Panama Bilingue
Program, a joint project between Southeastern and the Republic of Panama that teaches
English to teachers from the Central American nation in English through several months
of immersion in the language. The participants in the program will have access to
the lab to use the software program Mango Languages to learn English.
Barrios Ng holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from LSU and a
master’s from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned a master’s degree in
economic engineering and a doctorate in operations research from UCLA. He also has
earned a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2014 Southeastern awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.
In 2002 Barrios Ng joined the Panama Canal Authority as chief financial officer,
and in 2007 he assumed the role of deputy administrator, where he directed the group
that managed the financing for the canal’s $5 billion expansion project. He served
as the negotiator on behalf of the Panama Canal Authority of the Free Trade Agreement
between Panama and the United states. He has served as president of the Panama Stock
Market, Optima Insurance, and the media group Nueva Prensa Financiera, which includes
the “Capital Financiero” newspaper.
He has received numerous awards, including Executive of the Year for his leadership
at “Capital Financiero,” Financial Executive of the Year (1996 and 2001) for his work
with the Panama stock exchange, several outstanding teacher awards, and the Outstanding
Member Award by the Rotary Club of Panama.
